I(Tim) hit the Tully at the Waterworks this evening for a few hours. The fishing was excellent tonight, well it was until I lost all of my good caddis in fish and trees. #18 Light Green Caddis were hatching and the fish were on them. A #18 Cream Sparkle Pupa with a CDC wing was a big hit until I lost it on a Sycamore overhang aside of the gauge block. I hooked a few fish and broke them off and landed one more on a #18 Light Green CDC Caddis but it was tough as they were eating #20 spent caddis at that point. Two fish hooked up on a #16 Para Ant but came unbuttoned.

I had Joe and Josh out on the Lower Delaware River this morning and we had a good time as usual. Josh was hooking smallies with poppers while I was still getting the boat and extra rods squared away. We had action top to bottom with a lot of fish missed on poppers. The guys fished poppers in all of the water under 10′ deep and saw fish hit their poppers the whole time. In the deeper water we switched over to spin tackle and plastics were the ticket accounting for a number of bass.

Brent and I(Tim) hit the Tully at the Waterworks this morning. We arrived late, about 7am, but still I was able to hook a few fish with Tricos and there were plenty on the water with some females still hatching. A simple #24 hackle wing spinner did the trick earning a few hook ups but only one landed fish. Brent fished caddis the entire outing and landed a few fish. #18-20 Light Green Caddis were the predominate hatching caddis and the fish wouldn’t pay attention to anything larger which is not a surprise. Water temp was 67˚ and the flow was 200cfs which was great for fishing and all of the fish seemed healthy. No pics today.

7/16 - Fished above Glen Onoko for a few hours in one of my favorite pools. No bugs except a few flying ants and midges. Rise activity was sporadic and one very nice brown threw my parachute adams on an impressive jump.

7/17 - Matt and I(Tim) fished above Rockport and while it started out slow the action picked up around 7:00pm and we landed a few fish by 8:30. Cahills and Slate Drakes brought some fish up and parachute and cdc emerger patterns of those flies worked just fine. Several large fish were lost, but this happens a lot when you’re fishing for fish that are 80′ away from you.

As always, we encourage angler that are fishing the Gorge to keep an open mind and understand that a particular pool may fish like gangbusters one night and be dead the next. You need to get around and explore up here and pay your dues to the fishing gods. All of us have sat on the streamside in our favorite pools in the Gorge and waited for hours with no activity.

Matt, Brent, and I(Tim) hit the Lower Delaware today to do a little scouting. The fishing was pretty good. The water was a bit high for fly fishing but the spin fishing with lots of fish hooked with grubs and a few nice walleye hooked with crankbaits. Fish were spread out with just as much action in the fast water as slow. The smallies seemed to be all over the water column in water under 10′ deep and on the bottom in water deeper than that. Some fish were hooked with Olive Chain Reaction Leeches and buggers but not much surface activity was observed and only a few fish were hooked with poppers.

Thanks to the cold evenings and well spaced rainfall we’re still trout fishing on the Lehigh in Mid-July!!! Last evening we landed a few rainbows and had a few browns on with the biggest fish of the evening being a 16″ rainbow. Slate Drakes, BWOs, Cahills, and Sulphurs are all present at times and a well presented Parachute Adams type fly has been the ticket most days. Nymphs have mostly been turning up smallies but vigilant nymphers will catch some trout.

The water is hovering around 68 degrees and with the drop in flow a few warm days will push it over the top so please check your temps when planning to fish and absolutely ditch the light tippets. We’ve hooked plenty of fish with 3-4x tippets so there’s no need for the light stuff, it’s time to learn how to get a good drift instead of resorting to light tippets and killing fish for the sake of catching them. I watched an angler near Walnutport fight a 12″ trout for about 10 minutes the other night because he was using 6x. Let’s use our heads and protect the fish guys and gals.

Another Upper Delaware Trip and it was a goodie. We floated from Stilesville to Balls Eddy and once again the Chain Reaction Leeches got the job done sub surface and brought fish to the net within sight of the boat launch. White and Olive were both effective colors. Water temp at Deposit was 49˚. The sulphurs hatched in insane numbers after a mid-day thunderstorm and provided several hours of good fishing. Lehigh Unusual Sulphurs and simple parachute patterns were both effective.